Old Man/New Man Podcast - Stephen Canup interviewed by Robert Jenkins

It's time to put off the old man which is corrupt and to put on the new man which is created in righteousness and true holiness. It's the Old Man, New Man podcast with host Stephen Canem. Well hello everybody. If you're seeing this video I want to say God bless you and welcome to the Old Man, New Man podcast. I am NOT your host Stephen Canem. Actually this gentleman over here is your host Stephen Canem, a good friend of mine. Actually my name is Robert Jenkins. I travel with Freedom in Jesus Prison Ministries and Stephen wanted me to actually interview him today. This is his podcast and he normally does the interviews but we swapped out today so we could get his testimony. What you'll see is this is kind of a one of the things that we do on the Old Man, New Man podcast is we have a where are they now type of session. So that's what we're gonna talk about today Stephen. Where are you now other than right here in the chair with me. So I know you've made just a huge amount of progress. You actually did serve time so give us a little overview of how you went to prison, what happened. What I'm particularly interested in though is what turns you around and where have you come since then. Okay well of course my testimony is in this book Lepers No More and that's kind of what this particular where are they now is taken out of this book and so at one time I was very successful. I grew up in Lubbock when I graduated from Texas Tech University, got a degree in accounting. I was always blessed to be near the top of the class. I got a really good job and public accounting started off with Pricewaterhouse in Denver and then after about a year my wife wanted to move back to Texas where her family was in Central Texas. So we moved down there and I was a CPA and kind of moved up pretty quickly in the ranks. I never gave God any credit really for the talent and ability that he'd given me. Now I see that it was all you know he was even when I wasn't even trying to serve him he still had his hand on me and he'd given me a lot of talent and ability and I rose to the top of the business world at a pretty young age at 35-36 years old. I ended up as a partner age 29 and which is really young for a major

accounting firm. But then I ended up actually getting another promotion and moved to the national office of the world's largest accounting firm KPMG Pete Marwick in New York City and it was a two-year tour of duty and at that time and that was 1985-86 I was I don't know 33, 34, 35 years old making about a quarter of a million dollars a year and had everything going for me in the world's eyes and they had a wonderful wife and an infant son that we had adopted and and making that kind of money which the world would say I was on top of the world and I guess I was in that sense but I was inside I was empty and lost and bored and I climbed that ladder later on I heard Joyce Meyer say sometimes you can be climbing the ladder of success so hard and so fast that you get to the top of the ladder and realize that the ladder was leaning on the wrong building and that's basically how I felt when I got there I wasn't happy you know it was always the next raise the next promotion the next rung on the ladder that was you know the attaboy and and you know you feel good for a couple of weeks and then it's you know well what's the next what I got to do get the next raise the next promotion so it was a rat race I was addicted to work it cost me my first marriage really because I was that way but so time I was in New York I was actually married to my second wife and but I was empty and lost and bored and searching and seeking and restless and I began a slow downward spiral really into the reprobation and depravity and perversion and addiction because I was trying to fill that emptiness that I felt at the top no I couldn't figure out what was going to fill that emptiness so I actually became addicted to pornography I ended up drinking a lot ended up being addicted to crack cocaine and marijuana alcohol pornography in the worst way and everything that goes along with that so I spiraled down I went Life crisis left my wife and infant son, and for no good reason at all, didn't even make any attempt to stay together. Went off to Nashville, Tennessee to try to get into the country music publishing business.

And I was a writer, and had received some encouragement. We did some good things, but we had, in trying to build that publishing company, we had writers working for us, and I was co-writing with them. And we had a few cuts, but they weren't on anybody that you would know. And we didn't make any money. And I ended up, when I was at the top of the business world, I had perfect credit, and in my wallet I had credit cards with about $100,000 of unused credit line on there. So when I kind of went crazy and went to Nashville, Tennessee, I spent all the money I had and all I could borrow, and I did it too fast, and then made some bad decisions, and ended up having to file bankruptcy. So I fell a mighty long way. And then I went into the mortgage business for a little while, and then I ended up being unemployed in the early 2000s, 2002. And then I lived, and then I ended up being homeless by 2005. And then living on the streets in Nashville, Tennessee. So the subtitle of my first book, Jailhouse Religion,

the subtitle is from Park Avenue to Park Bench, to prison. So I ended up going to prison late in life, in 2008. And that's actually like a booking photo. Actually that's my, that's the photo for the sex offender registry in Tennessee in 2007. I ended up going to prison in 2008. My crime was solicitation of a minor, and in the midst of a drug-induced alcohol haze, you make some really bad decisions. And so, at age 56, I guess it was, when I went to prison for the one and only time, it only took one time for me to get my attention. I knew I didn't want to make a habit of it. So I found myself in prison in Nashville, Tennessee, just down the road a little ways from where I was homeless. I was homeless, for those of you that may be familiar with Nashville, I was at Harding Place and Nolensville Road, and I ended up going down to the prison, which was about two miles east of there. I think they call it Harding Prison now, but back then it was called Metro Davidson County Detention Facility, but it was a medium security facility. But that got my attention,

and I wasn't serving God, obviously. I grew up in a Christian home, and I said I was a Christian, but when I went to college, I pretty well turned my back on God, said, I got this, and I want to run my own life, and that kind of thing. My allergies are acting up here, excuse me. So I pretty much, for the next 40 years, after I got out of college, I pretty much just kind of turned my back on God. Occasionally there were times where we'd go to church or something, but I said I was saved, but I wasn't saved. Looking back on it, I wasn't saved. So I found myself in prison, and was there for about 10 months before I had a genuine encounter with the Lord on my bunk, and I surrendered and submitted, and I was convinced that God could never do anything with my life, because here I am at that time, 57 years old, in early spring of 2009, and I had been unemployed, and I'd been homeless, and all the possessions I had,

you can imagine when we were on top of the world, we were doing okay. But by the time I went to prison, all the possessions I had in the world, Robert, were zipped up in one garment bag in the property room at the prison. So I figured God couldn't do anything with me, even when I did finally surrender. I just said, God, if you can do anything with my life, I'll serve you with all of my heart for all of my days. And I didn't know how he would take me up on it, but I think that's what he was waiting on. And I remember, like I said, I had kind of turned my back on him 40 years earlier. I want to run my own life. I remember in 2009 having a conversation with God, really, in my heart and in my mind, and basically saying, God, it's clear I'm not doing such a great job running my own life. Look where I ended up, in prison. And I said, if you can do anything with my life, I'll serve you with all of my heart for all of my days. And from there, just one day at a time, I didn't know what plans and purpose He had for my life, but I know the Bible. I was shown a verse by my brother Rick in the mail. I'd written him and shared it with my other brother and sister about, I was sorry for turning my back on them and that kind of thing. And he wrote me back with this verse that I'd never been exposed to before, Jeremiah 29, 29, 11 through 14, where God himself is speaking to people that are in captivity in Babylon. And he says, for I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you and

not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. And brother, did I need hope? Because here I am with a sex offense and I know God doesn't, I mean, sin is sin to God, but society looks at that differently. And I was convinced that God could never, what could he do with my life? I mean, I never learned, I couldn't go back into the field I was trained for because now I have a felony, right? So I couldn't go back and I didn't even want to go back into accounting, but I'd also been a mortgage broker and now I can't even do that. And I never learned how to lay brick or put a roof on or lay asphalt or any, any, any worthwhile skill, you know, I just worked with, with my brain, I guess. And so I didn't know what he had in mind, but I just decided I was going to trust him a day at a time. And that's what I would tell anyone that's watching is that when you finally surrender and submit to God, really, and your heart is now to want to please him and to do the best you can to serve him and be obedient, then he'll lead you one day at a time. He won't, he won't reveal, I mean, my goodness, if he'd have shown me in 2009 what I'd be doing today with running one of the more active prison ministries in the state of Texas and, and now we've been blessed to have a really national reach through the tablets and everything. So, I mean, if God had shown me then what I'd be doing now, I would have messed it up. It's like, oh gosh, I mean, it's all, now it's all about me, but I had to learn to trust him and follow him and seek him daily and let him bring the opportunities and not jump, not jump out in front of him. So that's how I got saved in prison. I got out in 2010. That makes me, that brings up two questions I want to kind of delve deeper into. What, when you say emptiness inside, or I've heard you say a darkness and an emptiness, how do you, how would you describe that further? It's something that's mysterious to me when people say that. Well, it's a sense of, you don't have a sense of being fulfilled.

Nothing's ever good enough. Like, excuse me, didn't matter how many raises and promotions I got, it was, it satisfied for a little while that, that need to be accepted, the need to be recognized, the need to feel like you've got some kind of purpose. The, it's just, it's just, I think, I think it's the lack of purpose and passion and fire. It doesn't matter what you do, it's never good enough. Never happy. You don't have joy. You're not really happy. Circumstances can make you happy for a little while, but in the longterm, you're still like there's something missing. Right. And, and now I know that we have a, until we get saved, we have a God-shaped vacuum in us that we try to fill with drugs and alcohol and women and pornography or whatever to just try to get by. And we try to fill that emptiness with all those things. We never, we're never fulfilled, but we're artificially masking our feelings, running from ourself, running from others, not wanting to think about maybe we've made some bad decisions. in our lives or maybe people have abused us in some way or you know a lot of people now both my parents were at home but I mean it causes a lot of trauma growing up without a parent or in a single-parent household and some people are mistreated by family or others sexually or mentally verbally abuse and I didn't have any of that when I was growing up I can't blame anything that I did on on my environment because we it was a lower middle class and my parents were Christian we went to church and so yeah the the emptiness was I think with me it was I didn't feel purpose right that's what I was starting to get it almost sounds like you didn't have a mission I didn't have a mission that's for sure yeah that's for sure in other words I felt like I was always even as a kid I felt like I wasn't made for more yeah I wanted when I was growing up I wanted to make a difference that was my term make a difference yeah and I was

popular in school and I was president of the student body and you know captain the football team and dated the head cheerleader so even back then and I always felt like I wanted to make a difference but I never could figure that out and in fact going into the music business was one reason I thought I could do that is because I wrote positive message yeah songs and I wanted to positively impact others through these songs and some of them were pretty good but like I say they never got really heard or anything but my motive for that was to make a positive difference well you when you become for the first time ever in the music business I became a failure so there's a first time I ever had to face failure yeah because I never well I just not always succeeded in life and always been ahead of my peers so when that happened I was diagnosed bipolar I forgot to forgot to so I used to take all those meds of course I was doing drugs at the same time so the meds probably didn't work the way they were supposed to but I sunk into suicidal depression I was suicidal for a number of years and tried to kill myself several times just thinking that life was over and I'd gone too far I'd made such a mess of my life that nothing would ever get better and that's such a lie when you're sunk in depression you just think what what use is it nothing's gonna turn out I mean why should I even get up and go apply for a job they're just gonna turn me down they're gonna figure out a reason why they don't I mean we you know when you're in stuck in that serious depression right it is it's hard to get out of it and you convince yourself that there's no hope of anything ever getting better right and even in prison that's until I got saved that's where I was at and still when I was homeless I mean I constantly thought of killing myself and tried to a couple of times yeah I always uh I guess as I'm older now I feel like when you have those thoughts those negative thoughts and I feel like that's the enemy I feel like that's Satan mm-hmm it is I know that now you're right that's why I try to one thing I always try to do okay yeah I always try to be real careful about the things that I say out loud yes we were just talking to mr. Don Castleberry and when he said he was

walking out he said he said don't what do you say don't testify to that yeah I say don't put that in the air I don't certain things I don't let it go up you got to be careful what you say and uh that's just yeah it's just things become clearer over time I guess as you get older when you were still in prison and we'll fast forward here in a bit but when you were still in prison and you said that you promised God if he could do something with your life you'll serve him 110% yeah did did he did he say anything how did you know he heard you how do you know why did you why did you feel secure enough that he heard you to move forward and actually do it well he put a desire me so one of the biggest things that was holding me back was unforgiveness I hated me I rejected me and I speak about this in the book how important it is to put the past in the past the Lord in the Bible tells us that that in several different places. Paul says, I may not have figured out it, I'm paraphrasing, I may not have figured out everything out yet, but one thing I do, forgetting those things that lie behind, and pressing forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the mark of the upward call of God and Christ Jesus. So forgetting those things that lie behind, we gotta put our past in the past. And the Lord showed me that and taught me that, and I asked forgiveness from my family and they were quick to forgive me, and I began to, a weight began to come off of me, and it's like, the Lord showed me, he said, okay, now you believe that I've forgiven you because of my son Jesus, and yes, yes I do. And he said, I've shown you now that others can forgive you,

but you need to forgive yourself. And it's not, the blood of Jesus is the only way you can be forgiven, but when I say forgive yourself, it means quit letting the devil beat you up over your past, and come out of that, nothing good's gonna happen, there's no hope or anything else. So he began to give me hope, and as he began to give me hope, I found in the word, through faith, I just began to find other verses in the Bible that, about forgiveness and about hope and about encouragement, and I just began to read and believe the Bible, and then I started actually going to church in prison, the chaplaincy programs. Chaplain Henry Davidson, who's now retired, he's one of the best chaplains I've ever met, actually, and he was a great man, he's still in Nashville, Tennessee, he and his wife, Betty, I talk to him every now and then, but he was a great chaplain, and I started going to chaplaincy classes. And you just take a step of faith, it's just a faith, one day at a time. He says, in that verse, he says, where I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord plans to prosper you and not to harm you, I have plans to give you hope and a future. He says, then, so you gotta understand this first part, but he says, then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I'll listen to you. You will seek me and find me

when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and bring you out of captivity. Wow, what a verse for someone in prison. And he was speaking to captives, he was speaking to the Israel that had been taken captive into Babylonian captivity. And so I just began to have faith one day at a time, and I wanted hope, and I began to receive the, believe and receive the love that Jesus displayed on the cross, and that just began to, it begins to change the way you think. And I came out of that depression. I've never, I never had to take another Depakote or lithium or anything like that since then. I mean, I just, I'm not speaking against, I'm not telling other people to drop their meds or anything like that, but in my case, I've never had another minute of depression. I went through some depression. That's one of those words I'm careful about putting in the air. I usually don't even say the whole word. But when I was in college, actually, got to a certain point where I felt I was, I felt the same thing you did. I felt I had something to do. I was put here for some reason. And-

But you didn't know what it was, and you weren't doing anything. No, and that's why I started feeling that same restlessness and that same dissatisfaction. And that led to me being depressed and just dissatisfaction with a lot of things at the time. And, yeah, it's funny that, like you said, I think that is what causes depression, honestly, that we've, I don't want to get into that. It's a whole other conversation, but I think that's one of the main things that causes depression is when you are dissatisfied deep inside and don't feel like you're doing what you feel like you're supposed to be doing. And it doesn't help when you don't even know what that is. It doesn't come to you quickly. I just now discovered now, recently in the last three years, what I think I was supposed to be doing. It involves what we're doing now. But all these years, he's been building you up and getting you ready for it. And I could see, I could see looking back over my life and even now, everything that I've been through, bipolar illness, addictions, pornography, addiction, sex crime, high level of success. I can see how everything, the skills that I had to learn. learned to get to the top of the business world. God's used every bit of that in this prison ministry. So when I got out, I got up under Don Casselberry

and became pretty much a full-time volunteer. And then eventually, the ministry was able to pay a little bit here and there. But I was pretty much a full-time volunteer for five or six years, and then was made president. I was executive director and then was made president of ministry in 2019. Let me see. We're talking about where are they now. So what I'm curious to know is, OK, so you got out of prison. And I think your brother helped you get situated. But talk to us about those little steps where you see the Lord's hand arranging stuff and putting stuff together for you when you got out. Yeah. So in prison, one of my motivational gifts is a teacher. In fact, I did some teaching as a CPA. And I'm recruiting and teaching the younger staff members coming up. And I like to teach. Well, when I got into the Word, that gift came out. And I just started researching and doing papers. And my brother's wife, Neloise, I would write everything up, send it to her, and she would type it. She said, you're probably the only prisoner that has an executive secretary in the free world. I said, you might be right. But anyway, she would type it and send it back. And then I would use it to teach the guys in my pod.

We had a Bible study every night. And I would share things. And I like to do the research and share with others. In fact, God's used all that in putting these books together. So since where are they now, I mean, this was the fourth book that the Lord allowed me to write. But now there's eight. And four of those are now in Spanish, which I'm thankful for. But one of the things, while I was in there and I was enjoying giving other people hope and encouragement in prison, so I was kind of doing prison ministry inside. In fact, now when I go into prison, people say, I want to do prison ministry when I get out. And I look at them. I say, if you're not doing prison ministry right here, you won't do it when you get out because you got to do it inside. And the turned on Christian that's still locked up, and I know some of you are watching, you are the most important person in prison ministry. You're much more important than the volunteers like us that just come in ever so often because you're right there. They're right there on the front lines. They know who needs prayer. They know who just had a bad phone call. They got problems at home, or they got a bad letter in the mail, and now they're upset, or now they're depressed, or whatever.

They know they're right there on the front lines day in and day out. And so if you have a mind to do prison ministry, you need to be doing it right where you are. And as I got that, as I felt like God was calling me to do that, because I also thought about ministry to the homeless, but I narrowed it down to the prisoners for a couple of reasons. And I called my brother here in Lubbock. We talked. After about a year, I didn't get any mail or commissary money or anything for about a year. But after I wrote that letter to them to apologize, ask forgiveness, then we were in touch regularly. And I called him one day, and I said, I really think, because he said, he told me, he said, if you're really serious about Jesus and you want to come back to the Lubbock area, I'll help you get restarted. And I said, well, I really am. And he said, what do you think you want to do? I said, I really think I'd like to do prison ministry. And he said, well, I know somebody that does prison ministry. And he knew Don Casselberry. They used to go to the same church together. And sure enough, as God, you're talking about these God moments, it probably wasn't even a week after I told Rick that on the phone,

Don Casselberry just happens to show up at Rick's office. Now, Don is not the kind of person just to show up. So for some reason, he felt that he wanted to go see Rick, and they weren't even that close. It's not the type of thing where you just drop by. And Rick's very busy in the real estate business. But Don showed up, and Rick could see him. And that was a miracle right there that he wasn't too busy to see him. And he got to telling Don about who I was. And then he said, I think he's saved. I think he's serious. And he says he wants to come back. to do prison ministry, I'm going to help him come back to this area, would you mentor him?" And Don said, yeah, that'd be great. So that was an act of God right there that I wanted to do prison ministry, just barely mentioned it to Rick. He knew somebody, and that somebody actually coincidentally came by his office. And by the way, I don't believe in coincidences. To me, the best definition of the word coincidence I heard long ago is a coincidence is really nothing more than a miracle for which God chooses to remain anonymous. Think about that. Yeah. Yeah. So when you, when I think, and I think I see a coincidence, I give credit to God as a miracle that, oh, isn't that nice? I just ran into him or whatever, I'm thinking that it's the Holy Spirit. Thank you for putting me across his path or whatever. So that was one thing that was really tremendous. And when I got out, I moved to a small town, Leveland, Texas, which is about 25 miles west

of Lubbock because Don lived there. I grew up in Lubbock, but Don lived over in Leveland at the time. And I moved over there. I'd never lived in that smallest city. I didn't know what I was getting into. I was kind of like Abraham. God called Abraham out and it says he went and he didn't know where he was going, you know, and, but he had faith and that God was going to show him where to go. And that's how I felt then in going to Leveland and, and here I am, I don't know the first thing about prison ministry, except what exposure I had inside, you know. Another thing that was a God moment while I was still inside, we did not have, like, one of the big things that we do in Freedom in Jesus, we have weekend prison crusades and revivals. We'll go to a unit and have four or five services in like three days. And each service is different and builds on one another, evangelistic and discipleship teaching. And I'd never seen that. I'd never known that. Well, one time before I got out, there was a man named, he was an evangelist, John Bayer from Louisiana. And he came to the prison I was in Nashville, Tennessee. And it's the first time we ever had a service in the gym. It was big enough. I mean, there were a lot of people wanting to go. And so we had to have it in the gym instead of, we had a small chapel, hold about 50, 60 people, but we couldn't fit them all in there. So we were in the gym and the chairs lined up, I was sitting on the front row. And John Bayer was a fire, fireball. He was a little, little guy, but boy, I tell you what, he was anointed by the Holy Spirit. And I saw him, the anointing on him and the preaching and the encouragement that he had

and his walking back and forth in front of this crowd. And it was right there that I knew, I said, that's what I want to do. And I'd never seen that. I didn't know that that's what I was going to be doing. But he was the example that one of the main reasons I wanted to get into prison ministry, because I wanted to do what he was doing, because he was giving hope and encouragement and spreading the gospel and loving on all of us who were still locked up. And so that was another God moment, because that's the only time that happened. I wasn't locked up that long, I had six years to do, and I got out in about 32 months. So there wasn't a lot of opportunity for things like that, but that was the one and only time. So I felt like that was a God moment. Yeah. Interesting. So when you get out, you're under the tutelage, under the wing of Don Casselberry. And describe the next few steps in that journey right there, since we're saying, where are they now? How did you get here? And it sounds like really the first step to all of this was you kept your promise. I did. I went all in. The promise that I would serve him with all my heart, yes. And I am all about that. And I encourage other people, don't be on the fence, either be all in or all out. When we were out there in the world, we were all in, in the wrong way. And that's what I told God, really, is that, Lord, as the same level and intensity that it took to rise to the top of the business world, with the same level of intensity and focus that I spent in the wrong direction and all these XXX theaters and pornography and crack cocaine and all the bad things I did, because I was all in there, I said, Lord, I'll shift all that in the right direction, if you'll just show me what to do. Right.

And for those listening and watching this, I believe we have a video on Pandora. and Edovo called All In for Christ. One of the conversations, what is it called? Conversations from the chapel. Chapel talks. That's right. So you look on there. Going all in, I think. Going all in. Got a whole, I don't know, 20, 30, 40 minute sermon on it. So check that out. But yeah, please continue. So yeah, so I just started off as a volunteer with Don and I'm good at organizing things and office work. And we started a discipleship ministry. Don at the time, he was just doing four or five crusades a year and didn't have that many volunteers. And he'd get someone to say, but there was no follow-up. And I wanted to do follow-up and I like to teach. So we wanted to start a discipleship ministry by mail. And so I did that and started with like 12 people in 2011. And it grew until we got on the tablets. We were sending teachings by mail to about 7,000 men and women across the country, all over the country, because my books were all over the country. People would write and they'd want to be on our mailing list. So yeah, over the years, then I would just do the research, do the teaching. And then a lot of those teachings end up getting folded into these books. So in my books, you're always going to find hope and encouragement, generally some testimonies, and several of the books are testimonies. Two of them are like, I don't call them daily devotionals, but they are a daily discipleship teaching, like a devotional, diving deeper and knowing the one who leads you. But most of my books are meant to share with others what God's been teaching me. I like to do the research and put it all together and then share it with others. Just a quick question. When you do your research like that, do you use some kind of computer-based program or are you just literally reading and cross-referencing the Bible? Well, it's both, both. A lot of times I'll write like a cover. So they were on topics. One topic might be forgiveness or another topic might be the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so I dive into that. Well, what does that mean? What does that look like? And I find articles by other men and women ministers that I admire and trust. And I'll find, I'll go online and search for articles on forgiveness. And I may go through a bunch of articles and pick, I like this one, and this one says it best, or this would get the point across. So that would assemble those off the internet. And of course I always gave credit to all those people. And then I would kind of write a cover letter and then it's just like, oh, here's the research. And yeah, so I use the computer, but I am in the Word. I like to read and I've almost every day, I start the day

in the Word. There's some times I can't, but I like to cross-reference things and find themes. I teach by themes. I find different scriptures that support the same theme. And then I share all those scriptures. I share the theme and then I basically say, well, here's where it's all backed up in the Bible. So if I can paint a picture of, you know, the theme is submission and surrender all through the Bible, God gives us examples of what he can do with a surrendered, fully submitted, surrendered vessel, what he can do with it. And so that's submission and surrender. And I give the theme and then support it with all scripture. So it's kind of both. It's the Bible and the internet. I do not, I have not used AI. I'm not familiar with it yet. And, uh, I've thought about doing some research with that, but then I just, I feel like my, uh, I've got the supreme intelligence, the Holy Spirit. You don't need no artificial intelligence. I try to listen to the Holy Spirit and he is the supreme intelligence. I try to be led by him. And when I sit down and write a book, I'm asking him, uh, what he wants in there. And, uh, I feel like he answers. I mess around with AI a little bit, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's, I just say it, it's demonic. I have a sneaking suspicion that man, well, first of all, it comes from man. So automatically it's flawed. And that is just from a practical standpoint, it's flawed. Cause it's just, it doesn't, it doesn't think it's not, it is artificial intelligence, but I can't escape that feeling that there's something darker. So, if you're feeding it certain, I mean, you feed it all kinds of information, right? But the people that are feeding it have their own bias, and most of them are not sold out to God. None of them that I know of. Very few of them. Right. That are feeding these things, right? So I think you'd have to be very careful, and there are some genuine concerns about – right now it's artificial intelligence, but there's artificial general intelligence, which is the next level, which means that the computer is smarter than you. And then there's artificial, like – the next level is those computers are smarter than the combined knowledge of every person on the planet. And that's – they're really concerned about the negative possibilities that can

come from that. In the meantime, I mean, I think there's really good uses for it. Frankly, there's – I say I haven't used it. I have a writing coach. And – Who coach? A writing – Oh, a writing coach? Well, he doesn't coach me with writing, but he's a publisher, and he's good at Amazon and putting stuff on. And he has created these podcast book reviews, which are on your tablets. And those podcast book reviews are used – he does that with artificial intelligence. Right, right. And so these two people are sitting here talking about a book, and I don't know if you've ever heard one of those. I have, I have. And it's just like – it's just like me and you talking. It's like they've actually read the book, and they're bringing out good points in the book. And when I heard it, I said, who are those people? He said, that's AI. I didn't know it was AI. And it's crazy, because, you know, basically you give them the book, and it's read. And then you have this man and woman, in this case, a man and woman, talking about the book. And then my friend Eddie Jones, he puts videos with it. It's not – the AI doesn't create the video, the video part of it. But the podcast part of it is all AI. It's just crazy. Yeah, that's – AI is a deep subject. But basically what we're talking about here, though, is how you use your innate God-given

talents and abilities. And I think that's the other part of, you know, you're talking about where they are now. That's a key thing, is that you have to – if you haven't discovered what your talents and skills are, you have to discover those in some way. Maybe being in the Word, maybe just combining your life experiences, things that come naturally to you. Well, that there is a big part of it. You can take these motivational gifting tests, for example, which will kind of confirm what your main interests are, the way you interact with people, what kind of floats your boat. You know, some people are good at research, and other people don't want anything to do with it. Some people would rather serve in the church than to lead. You know, some people are naturally good at encouraging people. I'm an encourager and a teacher. Those are my two motivational gifts. And when I took this motivational gifting test after I got out, that's what it showed, is that out of about eight categories, encouraging people and teaching was what my natural ability was geared toward. And everyone has that. Where can one find these tests, or something similar? You could probably Google them and stuff. Motivational gifting test? Motivational gift test. Okay. Spiritual motivation and stuff. They've got all kinds of different ones. This one was done by Pastor Gary DeLay at Transformation Church in Lubbock, actually had one. I don't know if he created it.

I don't think he created it, but it was available through him. But once you... So if you were just to think about what interests you, and what kind of person are you? And these things give you questions to make you focus on, would I rather speak to a crowd, or would I rather just be part of the crowd? So by taking all these questions and answering them, it kind of categorizes you. And then when you have the answer, it's like, oh, well, yeah, that makes sense, because I do like to do those kind of things. So you've used your gifts, your spiritual gifts, and you've come... I would say, to me, it looks like... come up to just as high as you used to be in the world, I would say you're probably that high or higher in the world. Right. I'm telling you. And if you ever get a hold of a book by Katie Souza, The Key to Your Expected End, and she wrote that for prisoners, it's part of her captivity series. She has expected end ministries. And she focuses on the verse I quoted a while ago, Jeremiah 29, 11, but she has kind of a workbook that takes you through that. And I did not get that while I was in prison, but after I got out, someone gave it to me. And when I read that book, I knew that I was in the right place at the right time doing exactly what God had called me to do. And that was in early 2011, after I'd only been out through four months. And that kind of solidified everything that I just knew I was in the right. And I felt so fulfilled. For the first time in my life, I knew that I knew that I knew I was doing what I was meant to be doing, to do. And what a great feeling that is. And ever since then, it's just grown. And I do look back and see how God used all the bad things I went through.

Being homeless, being depressed, bipolar illness, everything. The success in the business world, He really has used all that and brought all that together. Because now I can relate to a lot of different people, because I've been there, done that. And that helps when you're ministering. And because I'm an encourager, I like to give hope and encouragement to people that are still locked up, still like I once was, even maybe in their addictions and hopelessness and despair. Because if God can change me, Robert, He can change anybody. I mean, look at that guy right there. That guy was hopeless. And that was in 2007. And people say, you look a lot older there than you do now. God has been really good, and He's given me so many opportunities. Whereas Don used to do four or five crusades a year, this year we'll be doing about 17. And we started doing crusades in Spanish. Maggie Guillen and Armando Garcia and some others are in charge of that. But I mean, I set them up, and then they have to go do them because I don't speak Spanish. Muy poquito Espanol. So that's been wonderful. It's been wonderful to see how God's used the books. We get so many, so many wonderful, encouraging letters from people who have found the book. Now they're for free, you know, free reading on your tablets there. We're on Edovo and Pando, and the books are free. All the teachings that I wrote, that I told you we used to put in the mail, all those are now on the Edovo platform. So if you have Edovo on your tablet, you can find those detailed teachings. We have videos on Edovo and Pando as well as the books, and then the written teachings are on Edovo. We just did a big course, just released a course on Pando called Sharing the Gospel. You helped put it together.

And that's out there now, and a lot of people are finding it and getting signed up for that. So that's exciting. It's so important that while you're in prison, and for the rest of your life, that you want to share the hope that God's given you, the change that God's given you, the fruit of the Spirit that the Holy Spirit is bringing forth in your life. We ought to want to share that with others, and we shouldn't be shy about it. I believe we're living, not just in the last days, I believe we're living in the last seconds of the last minutes of the last days. There's never been a more important time for us to be bold and courageous and share our faith and to pray for those who are not saved yet, because Jesus is the only way. He says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. What is the, for those, as we kind of close it down here, what do you think is the, probably the most important step that one needs to take if they want to be able to look back at their old life and say, nope, I have moved on from there? What is that? What is that old saying? The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step? What's the first step? Well, the first step is to realize you can't do it on your own. The first, and part of that is that you can't change yourself. I wanted to change. I wasn't happy with where I was, but I couldn't change me. I mean, you could do a few little things to change for a little while, and pretty soon you're right back. So the first step is to realize that you can't do it, but to trust God that He can do it, and to receive, believe and receive the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that God Himself loves us so much, and He wants us to be able to make a decision to come and live in Heaven with Him for eternity. He loves us so much that He actually sent His Son and sacrificed His own Son, who He knew could be perfect enough, where we couldn't on our own, and for us to receive what Jesus

did on our behalf, to shed blood, to be this perfect sacrifice. God the Father recognized that that was a finished deal. Jesus said it is finished, and God the Father, three days later, raised Him from the grave by the power of the Holy Spirit in recognition that, yes, it's a done deal. Everything that had to be done was done by Jesus. There's nothing that I have to do, or that I can do, to add to the work that Jesus did, and Jesus made a way so that we could make a decision to come into right relationship with God, because when we're in our sin, we're running from God, we turn our back on God, we don't want to have anything to do with God. We might go to church every now and then, or pray, or a little prayer every now and then, or something else, but when you really receive and believe how much God loves us, and how much He's done to enable us to make a decision to choose to be in relationship with Him, that's the first greatest step. It requires putting your pride aside, humbling yourself, admitting that you've been wrong, admitting that of your own self, you can do nothing, but with Him, all things are possible, and that's the first, most important thing, is to surrender, and submit, and say, you know what, I want you to lead my life, I want you to be the Lord of my life, and I'm going to stop trying to run my own life, and I'm going to listen to your word, and read your word, and I'm going to do my best to put your word into practice. You have to have a heart that, God's not looking for perfect people, Jesus was already perfect on our behalf, but He is looking for people who have a heart that want to be obedient, a heart that wants to please Him, a heart that's quick to repent when we mess up, because we all mess up, but we get up quickly, and we let the Holy Spirit encourage us to keep going the right way, we don't go back to our old way of life, so we truly repent, truly submit and surrender, and then it's just a step at a time, I pray regularly for myself and for others, that He would give me a hunger and a thirst for the word of God, because He has disclosed to us in that Bible, everything I think He thinks our brains can handle about Him, and the story of salvation, and there's no book like it, there's just no, there's life in that book, there's light in that book, there's love in that book, there's true stories that kind of raise the hair on your head sometimes reading through there, because it's real,

and it's history, and it's, so to have a hunger and a thirst for the word of God, and just to seek Him with all your heart, that's, I mean, that's a long way of saying that one step, but that step is surrender, that step is submission, repentance, submission and surrender, and that event starts a journey that is exciting, it's fulfilling, I've never regretted not, I have never regretted being all in for Jesus, and never, and it's just, it's a wonderful life, and I recommend it highly, and like you say, we've got a lot of teaching, and the chapel talks on the tablets that go into some of this in more detail, but that's, my advice is surrender and submit, and seek Him with all of your heart for all of your days. That sounds like good advice to me, Stephen, would you like to pray us out as we close it down here? Yeah, that'd be great. Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray for all the men and women that are watching this today, and Lord, I just thank you that you would keep them healthy and safe, and that you would be with their families, their families miss them, they love them, they want them to come home. And God, I pray that as these men and women surrender and submit to you and repent, that they would seek you with all of their heart. And that as they seek you with all of their heart, that you would just so change and so transform them, just like you've done me and so many others, in such a way that this would be the last time they're ever incarcerated, the last time they're ever away from their families. God, their families need them. They love them, they need them. They want them to come home. Lord, I just pray that you keep them safe and healthy and their families safe and healthy.

And I guess, Lord, also one more thing is that we ask for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit would be real to them and that they would seek the leadership of the Spirit every day in every way. We ask all this now in Jesus' name, amen. Amen, amen. God bless you, Robert, thank you. Bless you and thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for letting me sit in your seat and get this done. All right, thanks a lot. God bless you. God bless you. Thanks. ♪♪